Transcripts For CSPAN2 Born Bright 20161126

Be change that is some of the staff picks from Harvard Bookstore at cambridge, massachusetts. Many of these authors have appeared on booktv. You can watch them on our website, booktv. Org. For more than two decades, c. Nicole mason has written about emotional issues from violence against women to reproductive justice to economic security. She is also the former executive director of the women of color policy network at New York University Robert Wagner graduate school. There she held the distinction of being one of the youngest scholar practitioners to lead a major Us Research Center or think tank. In addition to being an author her commentary and writing have been featured in the los angeles times, politico, the progressive, essence magazine, cnn, msnbc, nbc and other outlets. She will be joined by a predominant magazine for African American women in the editorial leader she oversees the content and division of core magazine as well as. Com. Her influence extends beyond various brand extensions including events like black women in hollywood luncheon and black women in music. Before we start with a conversation we will have Charlene Caruthers read a passage from masons memoir. Charlene caruthers is a community organizer, served as National Director of the black Youth Project 100, activist Led Organization of 18 to 35yearolds dedicated to succeeding justice and freedom, she has 10 years of experience in racial justice, feminism and Youth Leadership development, please welcome Charlene Caruthers. [applause] thank you. Thank you. I would like to thank c. Nicole mason for this opportunity to share this moment. Many of her achievements, i have the opportunity to read a number of passages, if you have not read it you need to read it, buy it and buy one for your friends. These resonate with me and as i shared with nicole, so many things, happened to me moment, while reading this book. I did the right thing, a beneficiary of many programs we are talking about here today. I attended head start, i was involved in afterschool programs. As the first person in my family to graduate high school to attend college and receive a phd. My voice was shaking but i could not stop. I was having, in public, the private conversation i reserved for my firstgeneration black and latino colleagues who successfully navigated their way out of poverty and into the middle class who have a deep understanding of the journey from there to hear. These people in this room are strangers but i am only one person, i continued, growing up, i knew many kids who were smarter and more capable than me and they didnt make it out. Many were killed, gone to prison, living hand to mouth or otherwise on the margins of society. That i blame them or the system that allows only a few of us at a time to escape . The room was pregnant with silence. I couldnt take it back. I felt like an intruder and exposed. In these type of professional settings my personal experiences with hunger, poverty and episodic homelessness go undetected. It is assumed im just like everyone else, and advocate, policy expert, or academic. To tell the story with panels it feels voyeuristic like a performance. It is a predictable arc. And the many social service agencies, changed behavior, became a better mother. To make ends meet and economic prosperity. Hallelujah. Her story is meant to inspire, and feel good about their work and themselves, not meant to challenge or change how we make policies or shift how poor people in our communities, cities are perceived. Also a clear separation and experts on the stage. They, not she, what should be done. With both the subject and authority on the matter, firsthand knowledge of the messiness of poverty and the feeling of the poor internalized from birth like the believe our very existence is a burden on society. The collapse of this boundary made me uncomfortable, worked hard to disguise my beginning in life and my decision to change my name during my first week of college to the effort of erasing words and phrases. From my vocabulary, i succeeded in creating the impenetrable middleclass mask. Now it was off. The next piece is from the chapter entitled free today. The mark of a Good Childhood is freedom, freedom from worry, stress, the burden to explore, grow, learn without consequence or incident. These freedoms are often denied to children living in poverty whose minds are consumed with thoughts of survival and questions about their next meal, safety or housing and concerns they may never speak aloud. My grandfathers house with a welcome respite from the chaos and unpredictability in the duplex, there were no fights, arrests or out of control women banging on our door at odd hours of the night. For the first time my brother and i had to face the children, we played jacks, marbles and barbie and listen to new edition, Michael Jackson and stevie wonder. On my grandfathers record player on our living room. I joined the girl scouts as a brownie. Once a week a hippie looking woman with long blonde hair picked me up in a rusty flatbed truck and took me to the brownie meeting held in an old church across town. I am not sure if it was my mothers idea or mine that i become a member but i never quite understood what was going on or what we were supposed to be doing, collecting badges, making pledges, selling cookies, i did not get it. I was one of two black girls, felt out of place. To make matters worse while we played jump rope during one of the meeting the other black girl punched me out for not allowing her to have two turns in a row. It was my first flight and i have lost. I did not understand how she could be so angry with me, we were the only two there who looked like us. In my younger mind i had already made peace with white girls not wanting to play with me. I was different from them. My hair was spongy or stringy. I did not live in their neighborhoods or listen to the same music. They were strange to me too. However, i cannot figure her out. Why didnt she wants to be my friends . The side of a truck the evening after the meeting i decided i had enough and was never going back. A couple weeks prior i suffered through a Slumber Party where no one talked to me, asked me to brush their hair or offered to brush mine. This is not my type of sisterhood. My mother did not question my decision or ask why i decided to quit. The following week, when the hippie honked the horn outside at home for me to come out my mother waved her off and told her i would not be back. The last piece i will read is from a chapter entitled wedding day. I was fired. Her neck craned out of the car door as she pulled into our driveway. She had been employed for only a few weeks and worked for a young white lawyer in los angeles. Why, i asked. Puzzled by her announcement. He tried to hit on me and i told him i wasnt into that, so i quit. The word swirled like a small tornado in my head. It did not make sense to me. Did she quit because she refused to have sex with her boss . Can bosses really do that if you i believed her and thought he was a perfect. Later i found out the lawyers wife called a mother i made. When i saw her vacuuming the office, such an attractive 8 and demanded she be fired. Telling me initially he had on her was her way of hiding the humiliation and powerlessness. Even in her shame, a debit creating a world that was uncomplicated, racism, classism and in this instance sexism. After six months of searching for work my mother returned to the college where she received a paralegal certificate and demand clarification on values. Thousands of dollars worth of Student Loans and needed them to pony up on their job guarantee. As reinforcement she took along with another student took along with her another student who had a hard time finding a job. After being brushed off by several college officials, filed a complaint against the college with better viewers business bureau. And fearing their cover would be blown, college for gave their debt in exchange for their signings and not disclosure agreement and just like that, my mother was unemployed without a degree and back to square one. [applause] now please welcome Vanessa Deluca and c. Nicole mason. [cheers and applause] good evening, everyone. Hello, hello. I am really happy to be here. You said you wanted to Say Something. I wanted to say thank you to my agent, marie brown, dont know where she is, for believing in me. There she is in the back, my research and stories from the very start and i want to give a shout out to my students who were here, dont know where they are, bree, kiersten, they are here somewhere, the smartest and brightest women in the room. I wanted to thank them before i got started. Wonderful. This is really, truly stunning memoir and we are going to spend about an hour exploring it a little more deeply and talking about to tell your story. We have a little time for q and a and then you will treat us to your own reading. Lets jump right in. I have to tell you this statistic you put in the book literally stopped me in my tracks, that is that 47 Million People in the United States live in poverty. Not surprisingly, highest among blacks latinos and female households. When you introduced the book, you say the poor girl in me wants to explain why we dont all make it out. I would love for you to talk about why did you want to write a book that exposes so much of where you came from and how you began because telling people you grew up in poverty as the reading showed us isnt easy so what gave you the courage to do it . I want to tell a different story about poverty and my communities and the people who lived in them and their the narrative about if you work hard enough you will make it to the top and barack obama said that and even when people say that i feel uncomfortable because i know that is not the truth. Only a small portion of people born into poverty ever make it to the middle class or the top. I really wanted to make an intervention and tell a story that would not only give life to what i know to be true but also disrupt the damaging narratives we see all the time circulating in popular media and culture. Did you have any here or worries or concerns about digging into your story and talking about your past . There are two things. The first concern was how the story would be interpreted. Even early on, when i did a work in progress, one of the other professors pulled me to the side and said you need to be careful about the stereotypes and the stuff people, even though you may say it, will interpret it through their own lens is that would be when i was writing because i wanted to be honest and tell the truth but cognizant how the story would be interpreted by other people. And it has. Readers take what they will from the story and in some instances had to push back on interviews when they interpret the story, you are a poor girl, your mother is a teenage mother, they feel they heard the story without even reading the book. That is problematic. The second thing i worried about was my family and how they would read the book. I was very clear with my academic training i can tell a story that they couldnt so even if they didnt agree with me the possibility of them writing another book, a true book, i really so in the back of my head when i was writing the book i had to think about what will my brother say, what will my mother say, is it something that will hurt them . Say it is not true. As i was writing, was cognizant of all those things. You spent a lot of time interviewing people going back and talking to people from your past about what they remembered and how they remembered it and that helped as you were shaping a memoir. Absolutely. I interview my mom, family members, best friends, went to my Old Neighborhood when i was 5 years old and visited the apartment complex, the first one i remembered and it was really jarring and the stuff that i thought had not impacted me when i saw the first Apartment Building and saw clothing lines hanging from apartment to apartment and i said this is my first home. I fell down those stairs on my tricycle. Those kind of memories. Was it the way you remembered it or you had a different vision in your head . Be change i think sometimes people dont believe me but i didnt know i was poor growing up. That Apartment Building was amazing to me when i was growing up. It is where we lived and where all my friends were, we had dance contests, it was where i lived. When i went back today i said wow, there is nothing here. There were no flowers, the paint was peeling, there were clotheslines and is where poor people live. I think even having being able to contextualize that growing up is one we dont get to hear when stories are told. Did you encounter a lot of people who were still there, years have gone by since you lived in the Old Neighborhood or several other neighborhoods, and did you teach that . My neighborhood, grew up in high school, most of my friends are still there, it is like a homecoming. I am pumpkin. We sit down and do whatever we want to do. Back to the first home, what i know to be true i was snapping pictures and people were looking at me like i was an alien, like i dont belong and i felt that because that is what happens when people you dont know come into your neighborhood and i had to say i live here when i was 5 years old and two latino women talking to each other and it was okay, they smiled, even that dynamic where i can go into some neighborhoods i dont currently live in and start snapping pictures. And they dont feel empowered to say what are you doing here . I know now in other neighborhoods people will say what are you doing here. Makes perfect sense. Back to your family, you talk to your mom, and my mother, my father, the same story, and a middle ground here. Everybody was using their own they were seeing when i interviewed my brother, why do you think it is mom and i had a difficult relationship . I wanted to hear what he had to say. He thought you were smarter than her. That is not my interpretation, and it was hard to internalize. And the information other people are giving me about the same story i need to include to have a more accurate telling of the story and was really outspoken and i imagine myself as quiet and only speaking up when necessary. All of us imagine ourselves if it is, i will bring it. That is how i saw myself. With all these, when youre telling the family story, not just your story, must be really hard to filter out what i am going to include and what makes sense, how long did it take you to put these pieces together . It didnt take long, took me about a year to come to grips with what was happening was when i started out it was a straight policy book. I will tell this very objective these are the things. The publisher saw one vignette with a couple lines, that sting and easier. It was superhard. I cried literally every day writing this story. Some days i couldnt write because the memory was so hard, if that makes sense. To go back and reckon with what i knew to be true, what happens to me, what happened to my mother, hardest person to write about, my mother was the hardest person to write about because she had a complicated relationship. So when i started writing the book i sent my editor, the first chapter, it was really hard for my mother, and she said no, maam. You wont do this to her. It is a good chapter. It gets poor people in. She said you are not mad at her, you need to look for and tell a different story and so it prompted me to go back and think about my mother and her life in a different way so when you read the book you get to see my mother is a complicated multidimensional person. I am assuming she read the book, your family read the book. There, you know, i was intent on not letting them read it before, there could be no changes. Everybody has interpretations of what should be included, and so i didnt their voices in my head when i was writing. Finally i gave it to my mom to read. I was done with the first draft or two draft so she started reading it and she said i laughed and i cried, but it is ultimately your story to tell. I might not agree with how you see things but it is your story to tell. I call her back, she had 50 pages back in the book, and did you finish the book . She said no and my mother is really fiery, why didnt you finish the book . Because you are lying. You are a liar. We got into this tussle about, and she was talking. And and i dont agree with this. It is not your story to tell. My brother was a copy, my father has read it. I was reluctant to phone home. They are seeing themselves, and i will work through it. Lets talk about the title of the book, born bright a young girls jounrey from nothing to something in america. You are claiming that. You were born bright. The title when i came up, i wanted something to be true and i believe we are all born bright, the things that happen to us the dim our light, and learn to reignite ourselves, i really wanted that conversation about what makes people go dark. Men got a lot of pushback about who you do think you are. Pdf five. But is not on a person of color or not a black woman but this is a story centered in the black community and around the black experience. Okay. You also mentioned treetop to earlier that there were people who had an issue, friends of yours which even writing this story because they felt it was a really true . Can you talk about that quite. Somethings people find hard to believe if i say i never lived in a middleclass neighborhood until College People say how was the possible . Listened plan ever saw was middleclass black people how was that possible . And is easy. [laughter] been if you live and los angeles or wherever geographic isolation is real if those people in your neighborhood are who you see. It is easy not to see a middleclass black person or if you go to girl scouts. Sol pushing back able with the black middle class person with that narrative of food gets to be black and what does it look like in experience. Part of the narrative think the community that you grew up and that you were asked each other there was violence and neglect where really where you describe growing up is the opposite. There was a lot going on but one of the things is that we need to hold through those challenging times because poverty is harsh. I dont know what were doing. But to say that this is where a Community Comes through. And they are routine for you to be successful. So were told that at the same time even now i talk about family also a place that is not say how we talk about those simultaneously. And also about casting judgment. Bet you mentioned earlier that you dont necessarily everybody is borne glaxo with this something that is a possible for everyone but i do think with this sense of resilience that is throughout all types of outside influences. So what do you think it is . So i guess im trying to say pdf so you just kept going pdf they cannot help and am internalize those messages from that you are black or if you are a teenage mom it is hard not to take those things but what do i do with that . That have always seay a difficult child so it is an extension niobe do what i will do anyway. So one of the things with kids in poverty so we expect everything to be feeling around kids but then they have to overcome some of white expect black and brown for people . The men to push back on the narrative because because there were those that did not make it. So to say if you at of grit and perseverance and to be resilient he will make it out to tell black and brown kids what they need is a mistake. Just to shift gears a little bit coming in the book one of the dried thing seems and supposedly there is unconscious bias so low to talk about that little bit more with the incidence in your life of the unconscious bias and how that makes you feel. Anything in the book they are on the present so all of them were and for peoples lives. So what that means is that theyre doing the exact opposite. Early on so if you are bad the police will come the u. N. Is crazy stuff you should not tell the kids. [laughter] so when people worry are asked for the mistrust of lawenforcement i black people in it, of very early age. They are there to protect you or help you but now so when white people dont understand why black people are afraid of police because they dont have that relationship with the police. So i try to complicate those questions and talk about the zero woman that was raped in the police come. And then they go their separate ways. How does that feel to be on the receiving end . In the beginning i talk about i was a twin. And then after she has of baby one dies and they did not tell her anything what happened there was no conversation heres your one baby goahead you cannot take care of this one so we dont care. So not until i started to write the book fight that pits and pieces. So what she was for . Or a poor black girl . Soros thinking about that when i was riding. Towards the end of the bucket talk about going to college and how there are things that you missed out on wintertime going to college that you prepare income to the realization in not as prepared as you thought you were . Did you have a feeling and once you realize i did not get what everybody else seems to have gotten, how did that make you feel like. I grappled with the idea i can only see what i can see. Sell my experience schools across town had more resources, or materials, propping them for harvard and columbia i had no idea. Did then i go to howard to find out actually there is a hole parallel system had worked in you are not supposed to be here. And that made me really angry so we were never supposed to succeed. You are lying to us. And that was painful. The lead to say you are lying and talk about what is going on. And what is happening to girls like me. And with the real truth of that experience that it came not to say do you worry they will monday as receptive not you are telling the truth in your experience . So on the one hand there is a few white women in mind that ive been around plenty of white round tables i dont know where they get these stories can understand nate are making a. So they have these grand fantasies you are you talking about . And then immediate need to be deleted go to training. Board to say that isnt accurate. I dont care jesus did the study. So that disrupts the narrative for saudis king is coming into play. So yes i just continue to tell the story because it is my truth. Handed is easy to push the canyon down the road and to say i am not willing to push the can down the road so i will tell the story so they come back to that original story that they know. I cannot tell you or i will not be on tv again. There is a review that came out for fun and weve reviewed these carefully because sometimes they make sense. The publisher said to me. Con pdf except they call my brother and a petty thief and a gangbanger. [laughter] then that is not in the book and all. I have never use that language but that is imagination going wild. Why did it use Say Something . I will talk to them. So they made a correction but divided not push that along then there would have been a perception of my brother that i never even sadder nothing even close. And to go back to talk about a family story teller and as you were writing and thinking about the emotion i of grappling telling the story that they may not agree west then tell that any way to push past those moments how do you get through that . There is a lot of people that lead love to tell their story but is the emotion of it all. Some other must suspend appoint where you could get past that . I did in digest kept writing even if i needed to take a break for a day or two sometimes it was a week i had a deadline and i said i cannot write because the memory is in my head is too heavy so i need to go sit down for a little while and that was true. I had some really good friends to read the book as i was writing it ever been thousand they said you cannot leave that out. You have to tell the city dont say this they will not understand why this happened. The eight kept you accountable. But even with push back they would say you have to tell this for me. To say somebody at the drag out fight battlefield that demotions the need to dig deeper to try to tell that more fully that was one of the most difficult and too loose day nonjudgmental all particular with the right team of my mother the riding of my mother and our relationship. That takes a lot of guts to talk about your mom as we tend not to challenge everybody wants to think the best of the mom. It is a mom. I dunno how taboo that is but black moms are here and everybody else is here. If you dont talk about your mother in a negative way it is like sunday dinners and good times so to say let me pull back the layers to talk about a complicated relationship where she is if flawed and scrappy and abusive anthologys things and then you have a flash of love for you want the law of and how do you tell that story of that black mother and not be vilified . So i try to do my best to say understand her also. So people walk away and that is what i wanted. Has said any easier to understand the ways that your mom interacted with you or the decisions that she made that you may have to make . Or that you have a different perspective now you are a mom . With this set the the of sexual twins six year old twins pauley and parker parker, down. [laughter] but i have im from los angeles i thought i am never going back. And then it is for short periods of time. But when we have the kids to think about my mother as a mother and my father as of father i remember calling it one time to Say Something like how did you leave us . Because now i know what it is like to have kids that are looking for love and care and he really did not have an answer so to grapple with my childhood hurt in to raise kids that our healthy and whole israel is real. So give the answer you gave me earlier that you feel the adults in life should have been held more accountable or should be held accountable for some of those things that happened to you are didnt happen like i am having thinking about the example of you wanted to participate in something it was not the drill team but something else. And your mom said no. Sometimes it is arbitrary. Yes are no. Digest date at the time be hard to say theyve shed be held accountable so the choices that she was making a did not understand them as wrong or right and years later i can say those are different choices and i would have made that we dont have to make so i dont have to think and terms of accountability and how tough it was to be 60 years 17 my father is still a party here i see the narrative. And that is true today so i can imagine it was true when he was 16 then i think about myself with the armistice on civility but never once is their judgment forced upon any of the character is in the story but this is how well was. To interpret however you see it. But that was intentional. Diatribe to write the angry book first. But in the end i decided that wanted to tell the story of the people of my life who is an amazing woman but very complex and not judged that a or not put my academic intellectual what may be true now to insert that into the narrative then because that was not true then. So even when i interviewed her she did not like the book that much pressure started to run around with the family to say she is that youre calling us pour. But we work in she said no no no we are not but it is true i didnt think we were then and she still doesnt think that she is. So that is hard but it is also the truth. Water the things that you hope they will get to from reading quick. One of the things have ben grateful about the of how people see themselves as a protagonist but also not without my own flaws. And that is a good thing i am not separate from my family. So when black women and black girls in particular say i see myself or to say thats funny we know funny or Something Like that what i hope for black women in your black girls that we see ourselves at the national level. I want them to stop telling lies about us. I want them to not lie. So i am hoping that it shifts the narrative a little bit. Now is the time to open for questions their microphones and of back your welcome to come to the microphone and share your thoughts with us. Show we start to the right . And now that i have finished the of book there is the uncanny similarity and it is crazy and i was thinking and done even know what that means for an adult think ahead ever felt that. So we can process later but it i totally feel you and this tension of what is true at the time. So to save about the exact same situation so when you circulate the story that they might reject that or corrective the story on another level that is related to funding so what does it like to be squeezed onto sides . And now what is the worst for those that does not do either to things if that works as a question because i see that personally. Did you have some of insight even though they may have some push back as the people , not of the woodwork but maybe that is common. Theyre having conversations about the book and one them to have that conversation without me having to defend what i wrote. Day you think at a certain point they will work through whatever that is. By justin not ready yet my father keeps calling. But i feel at some point i will have to reckon with them because they have their own version of the story so i feel like they will try to tell me their story to correct me or convince me that my story is not right. And then to spend a lot of time and do you know, yourself grex goodies ague were m. The story . She will hate this so there was a lot of feelings and to not think about what i will lead write about him because he never gave me any space like where were you . But would shut the conversation down the with the book you cannot and that may be hard for a lot of people in the block a book that i love. So how argue deal with that narrative . That does not match with a common conventional copper co. A question here. Good afternoon the coal. I just want to say thank you first of all for sharing your story. I am also from Southern California and grew up on the poverty line and someone of your aspects of your story resonate with me so again i want to say thank you. Currently im working with a Nonprofit Organization that whose leadership academies at Princeton University for young black girls and they come from all over the United States. Variable to get in to two spaces where they will talk about silencing that happens in our communities. I just want to know what type of advice would you give to young black girls and you know i go to the university of california santa cruz im constantly being silenced about our experiences growing up in property. What advice would you give to young black girls who were used to being silenced about these issues and how do we push back and resist against the structures both outside of our homes but also in our Community Spaces where you can have a dialogue with mother or an uncle or someone and you want to hold them accountable but they want to say you did not experience what you experience or they want you to say perhaps it didnt happen the way it did. How do young black girls find that voice to push back . Well it reminds me of Toni Morrisons quote and im not going to get right at this moment but the idea that the function of racism is they tell you that you know your head like looks like this in uke set out to prove that your head doesnt look like this. Besides the rationale about why your story isnt the right story so you set about trying to prove that this is the right story and what ive decided for myself if i dont have anything to prove. I dont have to prove my humanity and i dont have to prove that my story is true, it just is and thats the way we carry in terms of defending and trying to reassert our humanity to people who dont see us as human. Just refusing to do that. Any longer. I dont know if thats helpful but in terms of working with little girls and the same thing having them be. See who they are. Give yourself permission to make that decision that you dont have to be in whatever anyones narrative. If it doesnt agree with your own. Dont tell me how to interpret my experiences. [applause] hello. To be honest with you i have not read the book. I just rolled in to the schomburg today and im like whats going on at schomburg today . Im so happy and thankful that i came in today because im still going through it and ive really been searching for a story like this. My experience in terms of how i define my gender is i was assigned female but i am gender fluent and whatnot but it still resonates with me what you spoke about in terms of the mask that you wear. I have been on my own for an early age so i voice had to deal with being the youngest person and the only black person in the workplace because im pursuing art and Museum Studies and things like that, but one thing you touched on that i wanted to, that i was hoping you could expand on with why you entitled your book born bright and i was hoping that youd could talk more about how you found the ability to love and nurture the little black girl inside of you and in the society and i guess a neighborhood everything around where black little girls are not cared for and they are not shown love or respect or anything like that, how were you able to do that in adulthood and what advice do you have for little black girls going through it and people who have had that experience of being raised as a poor little black girl . How do they affirm themselves and everybody else even sometimes their family. I feel like its just work. I cant say anything else. People say black women, black women have high selfesteem and we love our bodies. We love our hair. The only thing i want to say is i just feel like how can we without doing the work, how could that be true given all the images that we arm bombarded with that tell us that we are not beautiful both within our community and outside of our community and its only by, with the love of other black women that we are affirmed. So for me the people who affirmed me which i think is true in the book are all black women so this idea of the narrative that circulating that lack women dont love other black women or when i hear people say i dont have female friends because first of all they say female and i know im in trouble. [laughter] but you know and i just push back and say that is untrue. The love of black women that we are all the same as a black woman. The pasta. Hi i want to say first that you are so beautiful in person. He walked out onstage and i was like wow and you were so funny too. I think you are very funny. Ive had the opportunity to read some of your book and ive really been enjoying it and enjoying the way you insert some of the factual information along with your personal information and i was thinking about selfdirected girls, a strongwilled girl and it sounds like maybe you are kind of strongwilled and how that might have impacted the relationship you have with your mom and i was wondering if you thought about that and if you have children that you are raising and more generally how society deals with girls and particularly black girls who are Self Directed or strongwilled who white voice grow up as a marker of leadership but when black girls are strongwilled or self erected we tried to squash that and try to confine it. I was wondering if you have any thoughts about that. Sometimes i think we squash it and i think other people try to squash it. They kill it. I feel like if i were not strongwilled i would not be here today. If i were not, if i did not push back and asked to ride my skateboard and fight my brother, all those things that little girls are not supposed to do, i wouldnt be here today and i think, i believe its a formula that works for me and with my own daughter i tried to allow her to not to extinguish that in her. Be strong, you know she doesnt have to be a fighter in the way i was a fighter but she can assert herself and be powerful. I just dont think theres a lot of place or strongwilled black women but we are expected to be strong. We are expected to be strong and take on everything. Thats the stereotype but we do. Its a stereotype that is rooted in the truth. We are the ones when people leave we are the ones taking care of the family. We are struggling so we are strong but the idea that is used against us or we dont use it to benefit them, and you know thats when the problems come in. Yes, good evening. Thank you so much dr. Mason and good evening to you ms. Vanessa deluca. Im suffering from allergies and losing my voice. Didnt read the book yet but i certainly look forward to reading more. I am 62 years of age that coming from the heels of the Civil Rights Movement i wouldnt even know where to begin to write a book with so many chapters. One of the things i grew up with first of all family so theres so much generation stuff but i do see thats worth a discussion and at some point because we have people that lived with us and all of our relatives from the south. But now the younger generations allow the generations to read start family reunions. I can relate to so much of what you are saying. When we talk about our families, they tend to start to talk about granddaddy and the sun that. My grandfather was a sharecropper so i said thats what i say but a sister said no granddaddy owns his own land. So its a whole you know and my cousin claudine would say the same thing. So the way we see our family is really somewhat different. My brothers wont talk about it at all. And i will just make one other comment. This is really touching to me. Im a speech language pathologists. I retired from the department of education and i still on occasion will do some work. When i was studying it at him like you which is where i received my masters in speech language pathology at was that my mothers house because my daughter, i went back to school later. She was about three years old and my daughter she would take care and my mother would come up at five in the morning. My mother watched me study so hard for a test that i was trying to pass, national exam. It took me seven times before i pass that test. Im going to ask you to please. Im sorry. I just wanted to make a comment on what dr. Mason was saying, she said, my mother said you didnt go to the best of schools coming out of the city Housing Project so i just wanted to make that point that my mother made me feel bad and my mother seemed to feel bad so i told my mother dont feel that its not your fault. Thats just something that touched me about that. There are moments in the book where you say to your mom dont feel bad, its okay. Its not your fault. Im going to ask, looks like there are three questions. If you all could be so synced. Thank you. Hi the coal. I want to say thank you very much. I share similar background and its nice to see an honest sincere discussion on this. What does it take to bring about real change and to enroll within the policymaking arena and progressive white middleclass people on this. I think in terms of the progressive part the next stage even for the most progressive people theres a next stage in life and they still often have a narcissistic narrative. There are some people who would engage on an intellectual level and talk about it but the end of the day where we send to our kids are very different decisions. I would love to know in terms of that progressive segment and in terms of your role in the policy arena and what do you think it takes to bring about change . Im just going to add an i think it takes people from low socioeconomic backgrounds and people from ethnic backgrounds to be the decisionmakers. Thank you. I agree with you. I think its about changing the narrative and changing who is in the room. I think there is also a rail assessment in the stories. Peoples jobs are tied to the poverty narrative or saying people like this or telling the same stories. Your livelihood in the way get paid is potential stories and thats why have a job and you keep those narratives moving. Until we disrupt these systems that are predicated are built on the backs of poor black people that nothing is going to change. And its easy to live in your neighborhood or live in isolation and not see whats going on. Its easy. Its easy. Im going to ask the last few questions to ask one after the next and you can answer both of them. Hi, i want to thank ms. Mason for her book. I also want to thank you for empowering me to pass this on to my granddaughter. I was going to bring her here but i wasnt sure. Question, i want to reiterate something you said earlier. Why do you think a publisher would sabotage the credibility of your book . A publisher . I understood that it was a comment that wasnt true. It wasnt the publisher. I want to be very clear because a lot of this stuff goes under you know underneath the radar. I dont think the person who wrote everything i think it was her imagination at work about lock people in black families. Shes probably only person who read the book so she was like okay. So interpretation can be and not just in the reader but the person who is reviewing it can also unintentionally filter you know. Good evening nicole. Im so excited for you and excited to be here and i love this conversation. I was also delighted that i was curious how they think, when you see we are witnessing leaders like others across the country who are leading with unapologetically black feminist lens, how do you see that interacting with your book, with the work that you are doing to this narrative as well as how do you think thats playing out in helping women and girls to be that light you talked about like you talked about in the title but also pushback on these policies that are explicitly bear to crush the light, to extinguish it . Inviting charlene was intentional for me because i really did want to make that connection. The work i believe is so important is happening but also the other activists and organizers. The book had my story and this is my contribution to that work. It is my song. Its my intervention and hoping that it will be used as a way to shift the larger narrative and i understand, i wrote this in an article with aisha writing as a political act. As a feminist i know the power of words so there is nothing that is not intentional. When you talk about what stories were left out of what stories for included i was very intentional about the stories that included coming from the stories that were painful to write about because i know the power of those words. Thank you so much for your questions. [applause] do you have anything you want add vanessa . I felt we should have you read. As nicole comes to the podium to read a passage from her book i want to let you all know that we do have the book for sale in our bookshop and there will be a book signing afterwards. The chapter then im going to read from is the last chapter which is called i will fly away. Where to . Howard university in washington d. C. , and do you know where that is and how to get there . She turned towards the large trump and sick case that next to the curb. Is this all you have . Did he not hear me i wonder . I raised my voice an octave, do you know how to get there . Ive never ridden in a cab before and i was not sure trusted him. Yeah ideally finally answers. About 45 minutes away from here. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was almost there. He loaded my things into the trump slammed it shut and set the meter. I only had 200 hoped the trip would not be too costly. It was all i had. Where you from . California. What part . He seemed interested. I didnt not know what to say. Where was i from . I have lived in summary different places and no place in particular for any length of time that i wanted to say inglewood. The last place i felt at home. Southern california i responded. Like ware, l. A. . Yes. Ive been there once, beautiful place but i would want to live there though. Our eyes met and the rear view mirror. This guy was beginning to annoy me. I just wanted to take in my new environments, the country the roads the names of the cities the signs overhead, the license plates and the people zooming by in their cars. All around i and i was hoping to get the hint. I turned towards the window. Never been treated so lush. I was in awe of this new city. Are you sure you are going in the right direction. It did not look like what i imagined to the neighborhood was just like mine back home. [laughter] we all know where the hbcus are located. [laughter] nondescript convenience stores, men hanging out on the corners, chinese carry out restaurants sprinkled along the blocks process expecting it to be fancy like the weighted logo on the letterhead of the acceptance letter. Yes it is he assured me. Not what you were expecting . I just thought you know. He interrupted me around the campus is a little rough local to like the students that much either, never have. They think you all are you know he put his finger to his nos, a little snobby. Dont worry about it though youll be fine. What the hell is he talking about, stop the . How can black people be snobby or look down on the other blacks. It did not make sense to me. I waved my hand dismissively in the air. Im going to the thin hall 225, fourth street. I directed him from the brown paper sent to me by the university. Also had a home number scribbled on the bottom. The cabdriver made a left in a left and that left another right down the narrow streets filled with cars. Whats going on i asked. People are loading. Parents with their children. He waited patiently as he made his way to the front of the line and close the door. When he got close enough to park a cab and popped open the trump. I glanced at the meter and reached into my purse to pay him this is heavy he said as he pulled on the handle of the trump. He placed it on the curb next to my other suitcase. I handed him the money. Good luck he said as he counted the money and give me my change. He pulled off, wait no help up the stairs . He was arctic on. There was no way i could get the truck back inside by myself. I stood along why my stuff plotting my next move then i noticed something. There were parents lots of them helping their daughters unload and climbed the unstable concrete stairs that led to her dormitory. They were laughing hugging and snapping pictures as they prepared for the final farewell. At that moment i was alone. Never occurred to me to ask someone to take a crosscountry slide with me or parents did these things with their children. No one, not my father or mother had offered to come with me. Perhaps i rationalize they did not know they should have been here for this was a milestone moment. This is my first trip on an airplane and ive never traveled so far away from home because my mother waved goodbye i told her i would be fine. I assumed we were all coming alone. I was mistaken to the scene was dizzying. Whats parents and daughters move past the boxes labs in various knickknacks. They barely notice me. When they did it was only to asked me to clear the way. Can i leave these here while i check in i asked the girl standing at the foot of the stairs directing traffic and answer questions. Sure, just dont be too long other people are unloading here. To give myself time to think i decided to leave my things on the curb and check into the dorm. What a churning . Chautauqua mason. My name is emily predicted, m. A. I didnt like the way it sounded. It was awkward. Chautauqua never used except on the first day of school and i hope she did not repeated and the other people had not overheard it. I needed a new name. Pumpkin would not suffice either. [laughter] where are you from she asked as she flipped through the pages . California. There are a lot of people from california. A club i suppose making small talk smalltalk. I studied the top of her head as she looked down typing. She was bald. I had never seen a woman with the close shaven head who was not ill especially a black girl. She a top tribute he often did not seem to care. When she looked back up at me her long eyelashes at the back of her eyelids. Her skin was creamy brown and her teeth were maybe we could be friends i thought. You are on the fourth floor. Heres a key and a copy of the house rules. No company or no boys allowed in your room until after the first couple of weeks. Why did she say that i wonder, did i look like the type to have boys in my dorm room . I was a good girl still a much to my chagrin. Thank you i said as i turned walks back to the hallway and onto the streets. These black people look different from any that i had ever seen or met. They moved with authority and were well dressed. I had worn my best outfit on the plain of blackandwhite jumper and patent leather mary janes and i felt confident almost as if i were wearing rags. All the girls were beautiful, polished. If my Old High School i ended up being one of only a handful of attractive smart black girls. Everyone was beautiful smart and well spoken. Cars were honking and maneuvering to find a place to unload. My things on the curb for becoming a nuisance. Excuse me sir can you please help me take my trunk up the stairs . He was somebody elses father. Id id watch him as he unloaded his daughters luggage upstairs and he looked happy to do it. Yes i can do it, is its all yours . I nodded and hope that he would not change his mind. He was already sweating profusely and his white tshirt clung to his chest. He grabbed a long trunk by the handles on each of the sides and carried it up to the elevator. He returned to my suitcase. Thank you i said i was grateful for his help. I took the elevator to the fourth floor and one ferret dragged myself out of a elevator to my room. There was a room on one side of the communal bathroom on the other. Peaked into the bathroom. My dismay of the gym in the locker room at my Old High School. The mirrors were hazy and the browns house were cold. Maybe if i put some pictures up and make this homey i thought. My room is no difference. It looked like an orphanage. It was tight with only room for it at a desk and a chair. Switch on the air conditioner and made noise noise and began to hum. I move my hand over the fence make sure is pushing out cold air. It was hot. Hearing voices i want to the hallway and poked my head into the room next to mine to the people in the room turned their attention to me. Hi im melanie and this is my dad. The girl with the long hair said. Her accent was thick, southern preacher reached a hand out and i shake it. My name is nicole i said im from los angeles california. I had a new name. I wasnt chautauqua and its ever been. Id also never met anyone quite name chautauqua. Nicole was my middle name and it would be my name from here on out. Its on the professional, easy to say. Nice to meet you she said im from Holly Springs mississippi. Where the hell was that i wondered but i didnt dare ask. Did you come by yourself . I took the red eye last night and i had a layover in phoenix. Everyone the plane was so nice to me. My mother couldnt come. She had to work. I tried to her range and focus on my travels. Go came up from behind. The tight hallway was becoming congested. Excuse me, can we get why she said. She introduced herself. My name is jade. I live in the room at the end of the hall and this is my mother. Jade was from new york and they were heading to the door in the common area where the bags were. I repeated my new name. I admit colin im from los angeles. They tried to match the parents and they could. A few more minutes of small talk return to my room and began to unpack. I unloaded my suitcase and put my pompoms from high school on my desk. Before i left for the airport. Rummage through some of my own things that my mothers house and decided to take them. Everyone loves cheerleaders than i could hide behind the facade and watch your leaders are supposed to be, happy. Pampered and without worries. Nearly the exact opposite of my life at that point. I was done, i packed my bag in less than an hour and walk to the end of the hallway to jades room and a deep conversation about which things are mom would have to take back with her because they could not fit in the bread sized dorm room. Return to my room and plopped down on the bed. No television or radio picked to pass the time before lunch i looked into the conversations through the paperthin walls. Did you see that little girl from california . She is here all by herself. It sounded like jade talking to her mother. I know she said, thats so sad. Although i couldnt see her i was almost certain she was shaking her head. She felt sorry for me. I drowned out the rest of the conversation. I focused on my bed spread and bought back the tears. I didnt want anybody to pass by not me crying today that theyre working hard to convince myself that i was going to be okay. To them i was a little girl from california without parents to help her unpack. To me i was the girl who made it [applause] [applause] [applause] thank you nicole for that beautiful reading. May we all continue to be sustained. Thank you all for joining us and again the call will meet you on the lobby for further conversation and for a book signing. Thank you so much. This photo just weeks after, days after president barack obama was reelected in 2012. At the top of the mill from the Christian Coalition of america and i was struck by it at the time